There is great variety in how one views atonement in Orthodoxy.
Dear Mary,
Yes, there is. It is a variety transmitted to us in the patristic writings.
There is an interesting essay "
Salvation By Christ: A Response to Credenda /
Agenda on Orthodoxy's Teaching of Theosis and the Doctrine of Salvation,"
by Carmen Fragapane.
http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/frag_salv.aspxCarmen Fragapane writes:
"...In EH Jones writes that in Orthodoxy "discussions of substitutionary
atonement and propitiation are virtually absent from their published
explanations of salvation. [For example it is absent from Bishop Kallistos Ware's
The Orthodox Church]
"... the notion that redemption should be rigidly interpreted in one
particular way is itself foreign to early Christian thought: "The seven
ecumenical councils avoided defining salvation through any [one model]
alone. No universal Christian consensus demands that one view of salvation
includes or excludes all others" .
J.N.D. Kelly further explains:
"Scholars have often despaired of discovering any single unifying
thought in the Patristic teaching about the redemption. These various theories,
however, despite appearances, should not be regarded as in fact mutually
incompatible. They were all of them attempts to elucidate the same great
truth from different angles; their superficial divergences are often due to
the different Biblical images from which they started, and there is no
logical reason why, carefully stated, they should not be regarded as
complimentary".
And this is precisely what we find in Orthodoxy: "While
insisting in this way upon the unity of Christ's saving economy, the
Orthodox Church has never formally endorsed any particular theory of
atonement. The Greek Fathers, following the New Testament, employ a rich
variety of images to describe what the Savior has done for us. These models
are not mutually exclusive; on the contrary, each needs to be balanced by
the others. Five models stand out in particular: teacher, sacrifice, ransom,
victory and participation" ..."